[UPDATED] Bill Hader Will Be The Funniest Thing In Baywatch: The Movie

[Editor’s Update: Collider spoke to both Bill Hader and director Ben Garant’s reps about the casting, and both denied it was true, as the script itself hasn’t even finished yet. The original article follows.]

Bill Hader has made a career out of being hilarious in small film and television roles, usually as the best thing in them. He’s yet to get his big break, though, and is best known for his numerous impressions and characters on Saturday Night Live. Now it appears that he’s finally getting his big break, and even though the project initially sounds cringe-worthy, there’s a small glimmer of hope. What’s the big break? He’s been cast as the lead in Baywatch.

Stay with me here. When you first hear that Bill Hader has been cast in Baywatch, you think of all the awful TV-to-film adaptations we’ve gotten over the years, and understandably so. But this film has a pedigree that suggests it might be more 21 Jump Street than Thunderbirds. Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon are behind the film, and while they have their fair share of flops on their filmography – The Pacifier and Herbie: Fully Loaded – they’ve recently begun to drop the “money for hire” jobs and do projects they’re interested in. Lennon recently spoke on The Nerdist podcast about the film, stressing that this was something they were both excited about.

Could the film still be awful? Absolutely. But this could also be a very funny movie, and Hader’s involvement definitely raises my interest. As for the plot, it seems to be in the vein of 21 Jump Street, with the lifeguards exploring an oil rig of the Malibu coast that turns out to be a meth lab. Hopefully the 21 Jump Street tone doesn’t end there, because I would like nothing more than for David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson to be violently murdered in their cameos.

So even though the film could easily be horrible, I’m cautiously optimistic. Hader hasn’t officially signed, but once he does I’ll have a lot more faith in the project. The film will shoot this year and come out in 2014, so it shouldn’t be long before we get some indication of the film’s quality, whether that be a trailer or even a shot of Hader in a speedo.